FIVE-DOLLAR POSTCARDS, SOME GUY NAMED MONDRIAN, AND A FEW OTHER THINGS THAT WENT OVER MY HEAD

By the time the Art Institute field trip rolled around, I’d had lots of time to think about my project for the Spring Art Show. And after some long, hard, careful consideration, I’d finally managed to come up with… zero good ideas.

But maybe Mrs. Ling was right. Maybe this field trip was going to inspire me to do something I’d never even thought about before. Maybe I’d get the best idea of my life here.

And if not… well, at least it got us out of a whole morning of regular classes.

When we got to the museum, they set us loose with our sketchbooks so we could walk around the galleries and draw whatever grabbed us. Matty seemed like he knew what he was doing, so I let him lead the way.

For a while I kept expecting him to pull something Matty-ish, like taking money from the fountain out front, or trying to get up on the roof, or at least touching some of the stuff you weren’t supposed to touch in the museum.

But he didn’t. As far as I could tell, he was actually interested in the art. We just walked around for a while and sketched some of the paintings, and then we walked around some more. It was a side of Matty I’d never seen before. He seemed so normal.

Which, for Matty, was so weird.

Finally, when Mrs. Ling came around and told us we had fifteen minutes left, Matty closed his sketchbook and started putting his stuff away.

“Come on,” he said. “We don’t want to miss the best part.”

I followed him out to the front of the museum and then into the gift shop near the entrance.

“This is the best part?” I said.

“Trust me,” he said. “Just check it out.”

So I did, and let me tell you what I learned that day. Art museum gift shops are for rich people. Everything in that place cost about ten times more than you’d think. Even the postcards were five bucks each.

After a while, Matty came over to where I was.

“Hold this,” he said, and gave me his backpack. “I have to go to the bathroom. But wait for me here, okay?”

I didn’t really think about it. I just took his pack and kept looking at this hundred-dollar book about some guy named Mondrian, who got famous for painting a bunch of red, yellow, and blue squares, over and over. It made me think maybe I should get my own art book someday.

Just after that, though, I saw Mrs. Ling waving at me to come get on the bus. It was time to go.

I could see Matty too. He was still on his way to the bathroom, so I figured I’d give him his stuff outside.

But then, as soon as I started leaving—

The gift-shop alarm was going off, like someone had just walked out with something that wasn’t paid for. And because I’m not always the swiftest boat on the water, I started looking around to see if I could figure out who the thief was.

And that’s when I realized—the only person standing there was me.